Houdini VFX for Games

Have you ever tried to create an explosive effect for a game engine, and not had a clue where to start? In this course, you'll learn how to create all the content needed to create an explosion effect in Unreal 4. Software required: Houdini 15 and up, Photoshop, and Unreal Engine 4.

Course info

Rating

(39)

Level

Intermediate

Updated

Apr 27, 2017

Duration

3h 25m

Description

Have you ever tried to create an explosive effect for a game engine, and not had a clue where to start? This course, Houdini VFX for Games, will guide you through the entire process using the powerful procedural nature of Houdini and Unreal Engine. First, you'll be creating the textures for your in-game sprites. Next, you'll create debris in a way that allows you to use it repeatedly and uniquely. Finally, you'll add all the extras to sell the effect, like decals, camera shake, and a shockwave. When you're finished with this course, not only will you have gained a deeper understanding of timing and the importance of telling a story with visual effects, but you'll have planted the seed for future endeavors into Houdini based proceduralism. Software required: Houdini 15 and up, Photoshop, and Unreal Engine 4.

About the author

Andreas has spent the best part of the last decade making VFX for blockbuster games. Now he lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere, running his own real-time VFX company out of his bedroom.

Section Introduction Transcripts

Section Introduction Transcripts

Course OverviewHi, I'm Andreas Glad, and I'd like to welcome you to this course in Houdini for Game VFX. I'm a VFX artist at Partikel, and I've spent over 8 years as a VFX artist in the game industry, and in that time I've worked on games like Battlefield 1, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, 007 GoldenEye. It's the best job in the world, and in this course you too will learn how to blow stuff up in a spectacular fashion. We'll start out with an empty scene in Houdini, and create all the content needed for a large explosion in Unreal Engine 4. There will be no smoke textures that you happen to have lying around used in this course, but instead we're going to create an atlas of a looping smoke ball, a debris-generating digital asset, shockwaves, camera shake, and more. As long as you have basic knowledge of Houdini and Unreal, you'll have no problems following along. And by basic I mean that you may have opened the software once or twice before. By the end of the course, you'll have setups that you can tweak and reuse for many projects to come. I'd wager you'll be bitten enough to want to dig deeper and create even cooler things. I hope you'll join me and see for yourself why Houdini's sweeping across the games industry. Let's get started, and make an explosion in Houdini for Game VFX, on Pluralsight.